Saturday 21 - Friday 27 November, 2009

In the NZZ, Danish author Jens Christian Gröndahl explains what the opening of the Northern Sea Route is doing to the Scandinavian mind. The FR smells the putrefaction in Erich Wolfgang Korngold's "Dead City", approvingly. The FAZ is gobsmacked by the conservative French cabinet, which is standing united behind its gay minister of culture. Something is rotten in the state of the theatre, cries the Tagesspiegel, if it is untouched by the crisis. And in the SZ, psychologist Peter Kruse analyses Frank Schirrmacher's fear of losing control. read more

Saturday 14 - Friday 20 November, 2009

Claude Lanzmann is in shock: cinema-goers in Hamburg who wanted to see his film "Why Israel", were attacked by a mob to shouts of "Jewish pigs" - and no one paid any attention. Jonathan Littell sends a reportage from Chechnya, where reality is two bullets in the head. Last week's interview with Imre Kertesz in Die Welt has sparked much anti-Semitic spitting in Hungary, the German paper reports. And according to the SZ, Botticelli did more for male than female sexuality: he introduced vulnerability. read more

Saturday 7 - Friday 13 November, 2009

Die Welt remembers how the NZZ reported on the fall of the Wall: increasing its font-size by one point. Bernard-Henri Levy rails against the accepted myth that the collapse of communism was unforeseeable. Imre Kertesz explains why he is so happy to live in Berlin. Ulrich Beck expresses his respect for the pluck of France's undocumented workers. And when presented with a Heiner Müller who hates the innocent, the FR is hugely relieved to switch to Hans MagnusEnzensberger. â¬Ã¡ read more

Saturday 31 October - Friday 6 November, 2009

Much has been written on the Wall this week. Author Volker Braun remembers how important literature was, while it was still standing. Olaf Briese muses on its Bauhaus aesthetic. Author Reinhard Jirgl remembers disdainfully how it fell during a semi-hostile civil-service takeover. And Andrzej Stasiuk remembers how Germans on either side of it quivered in fear while the Poles tormented the Russian bear. read more